puck means A mischievous sprite in Celtic mythology and English folklore. It carries an Arena rating of 1521, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, puck ranks #1,148 of 17,052 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,939 of 17,052 for Scariest Words, #2,373 of 17,052 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #2,447 of 17,052 for Most Exacting Words.
puck is pronounced /pʌk/.
Why “puck” is a great word
A hard rubber disc used in ice hockey, or a mischievous sprite in folklore, from Middle English pouke, from Old English pūca ("goblin, demon"), from Proto-Germanic *pūkô ("a goblin, spook"); the hockey sense, first recorded in 1886, likely derives from the verb 'puck' meaning to hit or strike. Unlike a goblin, which suggests malevolent solitude, or a fairy, which implies ethereal benevolence, a puck is defined by a roguish, capricious playfulness. It is the black disc caroming off the boards with a sharp thwack, the impish laughter from a moon-dappled thicket, and the gentle, inexplicable nudge just as you pour your tea—the world’s minor, persistent proof that not all unseen forces are solemn.
Etymology
From puck (“mischievous spirit”), from Middle English pouke, from Old English pūca (“goblin, demon”), from Proto-Germanic *pūkô (“a goblin, spook”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pāug(')- (“brilliance, spectre”). Cognate with Icelandic púki, dialectal Swedish puke (“devil”), Middle Low German spūk (“apparition, ghost”), German Spuk (“a haunting”). More at spook.
name
- A mischievous sprite in Celtic mythology and English folklore.
- One of the satellites of the planet Uranus.
noun
- A mischievous or hostile spirit.e.g.“William Tyndale allotted this character a role, of leading nocturnal travellers astray as the puck had been said to do since Anglo-Saxon times and the goblin since the later medieval period.”
- The mischievous fairy-like creature from English folklore, like Puck from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
- A hard rubber disc; any other flat disc meant to be hit across a flat surface in a game.e.g.“In hockey a flat piece of rubber, say four inches long by three wide and about an inch thick, called a ‘puck’, is used.”
- An object shaped like a puck.e.g.“He reaches into the urinal and picks up the puck. He then walk over to the sink and replaces a bar of soap with the urinal puck.”
- A pointing device with a crosshair.
- A penalty shot.
- billy goat
- A body position between the pike and tuck positions, with knees slightly bent and folded in; open tuck.e.g.“The puck position is allowed during competitions when performing multi-twisting multiple somersaults.”
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- pucksy 76% match — An area of miry or swampy ground; a place (in a road, field, etc) where a spring rises, or where rain pools, and keeps the ground miry. vs puck →
- puckish 74% match — Having a tendency to play tricks on people or tease people by making silly jokes about them; mischievous. vs puck →
- puckian 68% match — Of or relating to the Shakespearean character Puck. vs puck →
- pooka 66% match — A fairy that supposedly appears in animal form, often large. vs puck →
- puckishness 66% match — An instance of being puckish. vs puck →
- pixie 63% match — A playful sprite or elflike or fairy-like creature. vs puck →
- puckle 62% match — The devil; Satan. vs puck →
- puckaun 59% match — A he-goat. vs puck →